We've all been there. Imagine your unit suddenly turning into a battlefield. Many bad things are happening at once. There is a crashing patient coming out of the OR or ED. An acute bed crunch is taking place and nurses are being pressured to transfer patients elsewhere in order to make room for sicker ones. Patients are climbing out of bed everywhere. The tele alarms won't stop going off. Phones are ringing off the hook and the secretary, as usual, is nowhere to be seen. It's 5pm and all the managers have left for the day. Now someone falls, then maybe a rapid response or code occurs. The entire pace of the unit has shifted dramatically. The small talk has stopped and people are shouting commands across the unit. Everything is amped up for the next two hours, and the environment is no longer therapeutic for you or for the patients.
For some of us, depending on where we work, this sort of shift in the pace of the unit happens seldom. For others, it happens every other day. It all depends on what type of unit we work in and the shift. However, regardless of those factors, most of us have experienced it on at least a few occasions and by the end of the day, we feel pretty run down.
The purpose of this thread is to discuss how you deal with these situations. What do you do when people are shouting at you and pressuring you to move patients. Do you tune those people out and keep doing what you're doing in order to maintain focus? Do you inadvertently start rushing tasks that require deft hands, patience, and focus? Does it cause you to make mistakes?
One of the things I will do when the unit picks up and people start going crazy, people are shouting, and tele alarms and bed alarms are going off non stop is to take my break, if I didn't do it already. I'll find the least busy person I can and tell them I have to go do something and will be off the floor for fifteen minutes, and can they please watch my patients. Then I use that time to sit down and gather myself and prepare for the rest of the day. I find that that kind of "pause" helps me function enormously better for the rest of the shift and makes me far more productive and able to contribute to my coworkers better. In really acute situations, like a code, I'll go to the bathroom and wait there for a bit so that the initial dust can settle. In those situations, people are shoving each other around the bedside, carts and furniture are being flung, linens are flying, and people are charging down the hall to do compressions and that kind of situation is just not therapeutic for me. So during those times I tend to go to the bathroom until the situation has calmed down a bit. Then after things are under better control I'll help with compressions, transferring, and so forth.
Use this thread to discuss the challenges you personally have faced in these scenarios and your strategies for making the situation more therapeutic for you.
I had to re-read the part in your post OP where you indicated that you leave the unit during highly stressful situations.
Although we may have secretly wanted to bolt during stressful times, your colleagues and patients need you. That's why we have jobs. There could be an urgent situation at any point in any work setting.
Your colleagues are likely not impressed if this is your response.
Specializes in Psych, Addictions, SOL (Student of Life).
Can I have my popcorn with caramel drizzles and crunchy nuts - I just about twisted the head off my disappearing co-worker last night which would have been very "Therapeutic" for me and might even have gotten me a nice quiet cell at the psych hospital.
Specializes in RETIRED Cath Lab/Cardiology/Radiology.
A reminder to please confine posts to the subject of the thread, refraining from personal attacks and off-topic remarks that tend to derail the thread.
Specializes in Psych, Addictions, SOL (Student of Life).
Usually during a code I sweep back my long flowing hair - check my perfectly applied make-up grab a doc is a tailored Armani sit with well oiled hair bat my lashes and say you up for dinner after this?
Then after things are under better control I'll help with compressions, transferring, and so forth
I love that line. After things are under control, just getting on with day-to-day tasks such as life-saving measures for an unstable, critically ill patient. ALL nurses should have a therapeutic 15 mins until things "settle", in fact why not take the day off? Doctors too.
I've presumed RND is just a skilled troll from reading their controversial posts. They're pretty calculated to make nurses in general angry. Must either be a) Not a nurse, maybe someone who watches a lot of medical dramas, or b) A nurse who has no better hobbies than trolling or c) sincere. I'd discount c entirely but RND horribly reminds me of an old colleague.
I love that line. After things are under control, just getting on with day-to-day tasks such as life-saving measures for an unstable, critically ill patient. ALL nurses should have a therapeutic 15 mins until things "settle", in fact why not take the day off? Doctors too.
I've presumed RND is just a skilled troll from reading their controversial posts. They're pretty calculated to make nurses in general angry. Must either be a) Not a nurse, maybe someone who watches a lot of medical dramas, or b) A nurse who has no better hobbies than trolling or c) sincere. I'd discount c entirely but RND horribly reminds me of an old colleague.
Sorry for greasing the squeaky wheel!
Who's angry?
I think he's kind of irreverent and has a twist, probably from the whippits.
He knows how to push buttons.
He doesn't flounce. At all.
If he is going to rehab I hope that he's working the program. Sincerely.
And this is waaaaaaay bettern PVT and new nurses and students and non nurses coming here and telling us how to post.
OP, I was the compression gal during codes. To answer your OP.
And no, when I am at work I am there for THE PATIENTS.
And if you booked during a code I would yell at you and you would mock my non oiled hair.
I am a proponent of nurse-centered care over patient-centered care .
Thanks for asking - I work in an environment that is very therapeutic for nurses. Me and my coworker stop between patients to do some meditation, yoga or also jazzercise to enhance the therapeutic milieu. It is all about us nurses - if we function optimal with some grounding in between, proper snacks and lunch, fresh air prn and patients benefit from it (if we have time to see them because I do think that there needs to be some time to just focus on gentle breathing and occasional soul travels, especially when the day is busy).
So yes, when it gets hectic, I take a gentle stroll to the cafeteria and take some breaths with a soda. That gives me the extra energy that I need to get through the rest of the day...
At first when I read the part about taking the 15 minutes to regroup etc, I thought it had some merit, then I reread the statement and realized what the OP is suggesting: that when his/her patients start getting chaotic, THIS is when they dump them off on a fellow nurse to regroup. How is this therapeutic for the poor nurse who must care for your unsettled lot of patients.
What happens when this nurse has your patients and 5 minutes in, things start getting crazy for this person's own patients?? This seems selfish to not consider the other person when you consider a break to make your life therapeutic, and to even dream of leaving your patients at the moment is beyond me. Considering the problems do not vanish when you escape to the breakroom, this means some other nurse must deal with them...so therapeutic environment means looking out for yourself only and wishing away the problems. ie hoping someone else will resolve them while you are gone.
Farawyn
12,646 Posts
Or hair oil, even.